Almost any coach would’ve been an upgrade for the Bears after Matt Eberflus’ stint imploded under the weight of every variety of mismanagement imaginable. Ben Johnson already has made some necessary changes at Halas Hall to sharpen virtually every aspect of how the Bears operate.
But he is betting his tenure on quarterback Caleb Williams, and there’s no way he’ll win without getting him on track. That reality undermined Johnson’s debut Monday as the Vikings rallied to beat the Bears 27-24.
It ended with fans at Soldier Field booing as time ran out on the Bears’ last-ditch scramble to get downfield with laterals.
Johnson has a long way to go as a first-time head coach, and his counterpart reminded him of that. It’s easy to forget that Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell has the third-best winning percentage among active coaches, but it’s also easy to see how he has done it.
It seems like no matter who lines up at quarterback for the Vikings, he gets them rolling.
He kept the Vikings viable with late-career Kirk Cousins in 2022, made them a tough out for any opponent in ‘23 with a carousel of quarterbacks and last season got them to 14-3 with Sam Darnold.
O’Connell was at it again Monday with J.J. McCarthy making his debut.
McCarthy completed just 7 of 12 passes for 56 yards through three quarters and threw a pick-six. He turned it around, though, by going X for X for XXX yards with two touchdown passes.
Johnson, meanwhile, couldn’t steer Williams out of his nosedive. After completing his first 10 passes, he hit on just eight of his next 20 as the game slipped away from the Bears before leading a late touchdown drive that proved inconsequential.
It gets harder from here.
There’s far more scrutiny on Johnson than there ever was on his recent predecessors. No one ever viewed Eberflus as the franchise’s savior, and even Matt Nagy taking on the Mitch Trubisky project wasn’t quite at the level of asking Johnson to reboot the No. 1 overall pick.
And at the onset, as a first-time coach, Johnson opens his career with a gauntlet. It began Monday night in a nationally televised game against a division rival, and up next is a return to Ford Field to face a championship contender in the Lions.
Johnson was their offensive coordinator the last three seasons, and the Lions and their fans will be eager to let him have it after leaving them.
“There will be a wave of emotions going back to that stadium for the first time in a long time as the opponent,” Johnson told the Sun-Times recently. “I know what we’re going to be walking into. That’s going to be a playoff-like atmosphere from a crowd perspective.
“They’re going to be loud and saying some things that maybe aren’t so nice [to me]. I just look forward to seeing our guys respond to that.”
His former boss, Lions coach Dan Campbell, said Sunday he “hadn’t really thought much about him,” though that would change as two coaches who were very close in Detroit prepared to face each other as rivals.
“He’ll be who he is and I’m going to be who I am, and we’ll play ball,” Campbell said.
After the two NFC North matchups, Johnson gets a supposed lull with a home game against the Cowboys and a visit to the Raiders heading into the bye week. But either of those teams could be better than expected, and there are pressure-packed storylines in each.
When the Bears host the Cowboys, it’ll be Eberflus’ return as their defensive coordinator. Imagine the backlash if Johnson’s offense struggles that day. The next week, Johnson will square off with a future Hall of Famer in Raiders coach Pete Carroll.
That’s the challenge in any rebuild. Even if the Bears get parts of it right, other teams are trying to do the same thing. And the ones that nail down the coach-quarterback connection usually get there faster.